New LDS chapel built as Mormon population grows in Newark, N.J.

This street view from Google Maps shows the new church building during the construction phase. Visit the complete Wall Street Journal story to see the finished building. (Google Maps)

Members of the Newark, N.J., community have been invited to attend the Saturday open house for a newly built LDS chapel.

The church building, on which construction began in 2011, is 35,000 square feet and includes a 45-foot steeple and is located in the Newark Broad Street station downtown, according to a feature in the Wall Street Journal. While the building was finished in June, the open house is scheduled for Sept. 14, as stated in the WSJ article "Newark Mormons Rise."

The article points out that new LDS meetinghouses are only constructed when an area contains a large and growing number of members. Two Mormon congregations were founded 175 years ago in Monmouth County, and today there are now five chapels in New Jersey with 32,744 members.

The building was built where an old factory had burned down years ago. When the construction began, members of the community were curious about the chapel but have welcomed the religious site.

"They are very well-mannered," Newark Councilman Darrin Sharif told the WSJ about the Mormons he has met in Newark.